An American Lion

Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing

Pardon my grammar, but wow—what a car:

It goes about a zillion miles an hour, looks tougher than jailhouse steak and has explosive bolts in the doors, but before getting to the new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing, if I may, a nod to the old (1955-1957) Gullwing.

Some years ago I drove a Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing in the Mille Miglia, the 1,000-mile road rally around the heart of Italy, and left the tattered bits of my blown mind all over the ceiling. By that time I had driven a fair number of vintage sports cars — Alfas, Aston Martins, Jaguars, Ferraris — and found most of them to be poor to downright horrible and spectacularly dangerous. I once drove an Aston Martin DB Mark III in the Bavarian highlands and remember thinking the sensation was like grappling with a crazy old man who meant to throw me out a penthouse window.

The 300SL Gullwing was, in all the ways that matter, the first modern sports car. Not only was it beguiling to look at — with Larry Shinoda’s 1963 split-window Chevrolet Corvette, the most perfect production sports car design of the Postwar period — it was also immensely secure and confident, with perfect steering and a kingfisher’s grip on the road. The only time the 300SL got squirrelly was when its enormous gas tank started to go dry. Liberated from a couple hundred pounds of gasoline, the 300SL’s swing-axle rear end would ever more urgently want to snap oversteer.

Here it is in red:

Red Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing

Now, this is what a sports car should look like. Detroit? Have we decided to pay attention?

Oh, and Byron wants me to point out—no, you can’t really “ghost ride the whip” with a gullwing. It’s totally not fair.